But this was certainly not the case in the STEAK office; with new recruits added to the herd, office expansion, and a winter party to top all celebrations – STEAK was the place to be seen in January…

The new STEAKites joining the team include Charly Dove- our Marketing and New Business Director, SEO genius Jon Cheng as Account  Manager, and Stefani Stamatiou, a fresh addition to the social team. It was a fantastic start to the year.

As our team grew, so did our geographical reach – through the opening of yet another American office in LA – massive congratulations to the US team; especially Mark and Norm!

Whilst we’re talking of travel, our Directors flew out to the Dentsu HQ in Tokyo for the Global Digital Summit to discuss all things, well…digital. All in all, an exciting week and a great opportunity to integrate with fellow staff and marketing experts across our network.

And then there was Disney…! What can we say, a bit of a rollercoaster from start to finish… a truly incredible weekend. Some photographic evidence below…

What is influence? It’s a massive question in the world of social media. Thousands of man hours are being pumped into companies who are trying to solve the problem in the hope that one day, you’ll be able to search a category and an application will spit out exactly the 5 top influencers you need to be communicating with to push your product.
I’m in the lucky position whereby I could be classed as an ‘influencer’ in a field (not social, sadly!), so I can quickly decipher which tools work and which don’t. I’ve tried blog ranking systems, I’ve had a go on Klout and I’ve used bespoke services. The commonality between all of them?

They’re all useless.

It’s not their fault though. It’s the fault of online influence and all its amazing intricacies / variables. The simple fact is that you’ll never be able to have a perfect system that analyses influence; you’ll always need human intervention. Why? Because anything that has an algorithm involved can be gamed and is open to error (the banking industry felt the full force of over dependence on algorithms first hand).

I don’t want to share the dark arts of social media with you; needless to say, with a bit of elbow grease and some solid hours, you can quickly create the impression you’re an influencer on various platforms. Why would you want to do that? Well, now businesses know that the power of recommendation is a powerful marketing tool, they want to montize that.

For me, this goes against the basic fundamentals of social media. It’s the one area of marketing where a business had to become better if they wanted to engage with people. It’s been a land mark business leveller that once again put the customer in control of the relationship, now I fear we’re endangering that power by allowing ourselves to become part of the machine. Klout and their long term vision of rewarding influencers for talking about their products with gifts, vouchers and treats is a horrible concept.

We’ve seen first-hand that people don’t like being sold to by celebrities when they’re flogging chocolate bars via their Twitter accounts. I felt kind of betrayed when Jack Wilshere insisted on plugging a computer game via his Twitter account before Christmas. How would I feel if my friends were plugging high street coffee? Disgusted.

Dave from Chafford Hundred might have a lot of friends in my social network, but please, don’t think he has a clue when it comes to coffee, and don’t think because he’s recommended it in a status update I’m going to rush out to Starbucks, regardless of what his Klout score says. Creating a game out of influence wedges a block of mistrust into an arena that has predominantly, resisted marketing messages unless they were relevant and well thought out.

My hope is that influence is left in the hands of those who truly are influencers in their field. I hope that we don’t pay people to sell to their friends and I hope that we just accept that sometimes, the human eye is a more powerful tool than a fancy algorithm when it comes to identifying what is important to people.

@PeterWood33

Schwartz says, “As STEAK’s footprint grows worldwide, it has become apparent that the West Coast represents the largest opportunity for continued business expansion. Having a client-facing organisation in the Los Angeles area will allow us to offer our customers more flexibility and provides us with a direct sales channel in an incredibly strategic growth market.”

I think everyone is being a bit mean to Google. Yeah, that’s right. I think the community of social media / digital analysts have been very rash in their assessment of Google+ and its social offering.

Google+ is the new kid in the playground and everyone knows they’ve got exceedingly rich parents; this is a back-foot start straight from the off. No one wants to focus on the functionality, no one wants to talk about where it fits and no one wants to let it find its feet.

Is that because it’s rubbish? I don’t think so… It’s actually a pretty good user experience. Is it because secretly, people love to see Google fail at social (Wave and Buzz)? Or is it the assumption that if you’re a massive company like Google, you should somehow be able to bypass the one thing every social media start-up has been afforded… time for the community to work out how the channel works best.

Facebook started in a blaze of Ivy League glory way back when in 2004. They conquered the University market at quite a pace, but when it came to taking on the wider population of the US with their work networks concept in 2006, the reaction was lukewarm. No one noticed. People feared for the social networks future, even the biggest believers/investors in the company at the time were nervous. A combination of open registration and the address importer remedied those fears and the rest is history.

Twitter in the early days was questioned and ridiculed by many as a waste of time and an exercise in narcissism. ‘What is the point?’ many asked, ‘You can’t communicate meaningfully with 140 characters’. I’ll admit that I opened an account only due to the peer pressure of being a blogger and keeping up with the Jones’s.

I set up my handle in January 2009 but I didn’t really start using the account heavily until about 2010. Only now is the channel really etching into the mainstream and growing out of the ownership of the early adopters.

That brings me onto Google+. They managed to pick up 40million users in 4 months, making it the fastest growing social network of all time. Then came the October traffic crash. People were signed up but they weren’t using it. As of November the 12^th, that pattern had changed and traffic was up 25%. Returning visitors were also up 17%. Google+ hadn’t died in a month. Shocking, I know.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that you can’t force a social network into the mainstream. You have to let it grow organically, you have to let people work out how it fits into the social eco-system and you have to give it time. My activity on the platform hasn’t been major, I’m just watching. The more Facebook gets my timeline wrong, the more I look at Google+ as an uncluttered haven. I can follow the people I’m interested in, I can see their information in a beautifully structured way and slowly but surely, all my favourite Google online apps will no doubt integrate into what could become the most practical social network on the web.

Social networks are a bit like trendy up and coming areas. The artists and creators move in first, followed by the young professionals and the students, followed by the masses.  We’re still being shown how cool the place is by the creators. Give it a couple of years and we might all be moving in. Then I’ll be writing a blog about another social network that’s trying to find its feet!

@Peterwood33

@SteakLondon

Blogger outreach is an interesting concept that in theory should work but often doesn’t. The idea is that brands approach bloggers and ask them to write about their products, services or initiatives. In an ideal world, this should be un-incentivised. The reality might be different, but the idea is that the opinion of a blogger, a web promoted authority on a subject, will be worth more than the opinion of a journalist or a glitzy write up on the company website.

It’s a great concept and if it’s managed correctly, the publicity can be fantastic. It doesn’t always work out that well. There have been many high profile examples of blogger outreach disasters. Probably the most prominent case of bad blogger outreach was the catastrophic failure of Facebook’s PR agency Burson-Marsteller. They thought it would be a good idea to offer payments to a prominent tech blogger in return for some negative press about Google and their disregard for privacy. Bad move. Bloggers don’t play by prison rules, the man approached grassed on the PR agency and let the world’s media take the story and dirty the good name of Facebook.

Arsenal Football Club is a brand similar in the sense that they have massive global reach and face almost 24hour scrutiny from their impassioned fans. They aggregate 300,000 social mentions a month, they boast 120+ blogs and a fanbase of 100million plus. Any news emanating from the club is big news.

The Arsenal problem…

Over the past three years, the Arsenal medical team had come under intense scrutiny due to the poor health of the players. The club responded by building a state of the art rehabilitation centre. They released the news to the fans to a luke warm reception. This meant nothing to the fans that had drawn their own conclusions on the problems the club suffered.

The solution…

Arsenal decided to act bravely and push their social media boundaries to the limit. They invited small groups of prominent bloggers, fans and supporter groups to meet with the Club Doctor and Head Physio. The occasion was a no holds barred walking interview about the medical set up and what the club was doing to improve things.

The results…

957 social mentions, five dedicated fan blog articles, 7,600 glowing words written on the subject, 300+ Facebook Likes, 496 tweets, and an estimated 120,000 reads and glowing fan sentiment around the globe.

Was it a success? You bet it was. Is this a model other businesses should consider moving forward? In my opinion, absolutely. Will many companies have the guts to put their employees in the firing line of informed brand advocates? Doubtful. What I can guarantee is the more prominent social media becomes, the more businesses will have to consider opening up their doors. We’re all broadcasters these days and a different approach to PR has to fuse with the modern way of social communication.

@Peterwood33

@SteakLondon

I’ve been lucky enough to work at entrepreneurial companies, including forming an agency 6 years ago and selling it earlier this year. Occasionally I’m asked my advice for anybody starting their own business, so here are a few pearls of (what I hope is) wisdom.

Find a Mentor

If there’s one thing I could go back in time and tell myself in 2005, it’s that I should find a business mentor. You’ll have plenty of people around you who can give you advice as your business grows, but you’ll need someone outside of your colleagues and board for advice and to sound off to about your frustrations and concerns. Someone who has plenty of business experience and has seen it all before – half wise aunt or uncle, half teacher.

Manage Change

Digital is one of the fastest-changing industries in the world. We all know this, but having a deliberate strategy in place to cope with that fact is something I suspect many of us lack. Knowing how you’re going to detect the latest industry developments, understand their impact, and act accordingly is vital. You need to dedicate talented people, with time to think.

Be Flexible

You need to be flexible to adapt with the change that will be your constant companion – and not to fall into the trap of becoming an obstacle. It’s easy to get stuck in your ways when you’re constantly busy, under pressure, and stressed – but you’ll always have a competitor who is flexible.

Be Prepared to Fail

We all fail. We might not like to admit it and certainly don’t shout about it, but we all fail. Be prepared to – it’s part of learning. The trick is being able to fail fast, stand-up, dust yourself off, and try again. Most successful business leaders have failed before they succeeded.

Learn About Stress

Stress is the hidden enemy. The fast moving nature of digital means we’re often rushing from one meeting or project to the other, being interrupted by text messages, emails, social media, and people wandering over to our desks to ask a question.

All of these things add to our stress levels – and reduce our attention spans and ability to do our best work. So learning to spot when you’re becoming stressed and when to take a step back is important to maximize your own efficiency. Whether it’s listening to classical music, taking a walk around the block, or reading a magazine, learn how to clam yourself down and keep your focus when the pressure is biting.

Take Care of Yourself

Another deadline. Another late night. Another takeaway when you get home late.

It’s easy to fall into bad habits when you’re working every hour you can. But if you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll burn out or lose your passion – and make bad decisions on the way. Make sure you have downtime and exercise time.

Optimize You

Like a campaign, you can be improved – through a mentor, training, or a business coach. There are always things we can improve on – take time to understand what you can be better at, and addresses those weaknesses. The ROI might not be immediately obvious, but you’ll look back one day and be glad you invested in yourself.

LONDON, June 2, 2011- Dentsu, the world’s #1 consolidated agency network and the world’s 5th largest marketing communications holding company*, announced today that it has acquired 100% of the share capital of Steak Group. Steak will operate under the supervision of Dentsu Network West, reporting to its London office.

Steak is a digital media company, with offices in London, New York and Melbourne. Its reputation for consumer engagement and delivering measurable results is reflected in its diverse client roster, which includes such innovative brands as Virgin Holidays, AXA, Swiftcover, Debenhams and Comparethemarket.com.

Steak currently has 94 employees and is led by Oliver Bishop, Co-founder and CEO, and Duncan Parry, Co-founder and Head of Paid Search. Seb Bishop is non-executive Chairman.

Steak was Interactive Media Awards Agency of the Year after only three years trading in 2008, and has since maintained top fifteen status in Marketing and New Media Age league tables for digital search agencies in the UK.

Jim Kelly, CEO of Dentsu Europe said, “I have followed Steak’s progress since it started in 2005, and admire enormously what Ollie and his partners have achieved. Digital media is a cornerstone of Dentsu Network West’s growth strategy. This acquisition is a great step in offering class leading digital solutions to our clients in Europe”.

Ollie Bishop said, “I’m excited about being part of Dentsu. They take digital seriously and want to be a leader in online marketing- and that’s exactly our ethos at Steak. It’s a perfect fit – we’ll continue to grow as Steak and as a major part of Dentsu in Europe. Everyone past and present at Steak Group’s companies in London, New York and Melbourne should be proud of what we’ve achieved in a short space of time – and look forward to an exciting future”.

The partnership enables Steak to both work with Dentsu’s European offices, and to offer to its clients Dentsu’s media expertise throughout Asia. Steak is currently exploring opportunities for its clients in South East Asia.

The acquisition also doubles Dentsu’s size in the UK (alongside Dentsu London and Dentsu Sports), and follows on Dentsu’s acquisition in January of the Düsseldorf based digital creative agency, Social Thinkers, further substantiating Dentsu’s commitment to digital growth and success in Europe. Jim Kelly will join the Steak board of directors along with Tim Andree, CEO of Dentsu Network West, and Executive Officer, Dentsu Inc. Seb Bishop will remain as non-executive Chairman.

Steak’s operations will continue to be run from its headquarters in Shorts Gardens, Covent Garden, London.

As part of the transaction, Beringea the private equity investor, which invested in Steak in 2007 will fully exit the business and Trevor Hope, Beringea’s Chief Investment officer will step down from Steak’s Board.

Dentsu was advised by Clarity Capital Partners and Steak by Green Square Partners.

About Dentsu Network West

Dentsu Network West is a dynamic, collaborative collective of Dentsu-owned companies in North America, Latin America, Europe and Australia, comprising 35 offices in 11 countries. Its operating companies include Dentsu-branded agencies as well as the industry’s most lauded names, such as ATTIK, 360i (on Advertising Age’s 2010 A-List), mcgarrybowen (Ad Age’s 2010 A-List, as well as their 2009 Agency of the Year), and Firstborn (on Advertising Age’s 2009 A-List). Dentsu Network West’s mission is to connect all of the future-obsessed, client-centric, entrepreneurial talent of the Network in service of its clients’ businesses. Dentsu Network West is headquartered in New York, with regional hubs in London and São Paulo.

About Steak Group

Steak Group comprises digital marketing services companies Steak UK, Steak US, Steak Australia and Minute Steak. Steak specialises in paid and natural search marketing (SEM and SEO), social media marketing, affiliate management, display advertising and digital design. Steak’s clients include Virgin Holidays, Debenhams, Swiftcover and Dixons Retail in the UK; Trump Hotels, Maxim and UStoreit in the US; and Betfair, Best Western and Thrifty in Australia. Minute Steak provides cost-effective search and social media services to smaller budget advertisers including fashion brands, online retailers and business service providers. Steak is a previous winner of the coveted Media Agency of the Year award at the Interactive Marketing and Advertising Awards, and has offices in London, New York and Melbourne.

It seems strange to me that a company who have a business model so deeply entrenched in genuine consumer opinion would opt to bribe bloggers with content inducements to disseminate bad press about a company that is hardly the poster child of good press.

Facebook fundamentally misunderstood the key driving factors behind being an esteemed blogger. It’s not about the money; it’s about the prestige of being a thought leader in whichever area their passion lies. Show me a blogger concerned about money first and foremost and I’ll show you a bad blogger.

Many businesses struggle with outreach because of this very reason. They’re still living in the days of media buying, a time when commodity purchasing was essential to the survival of publications. Times have changed, most bloggers write for to love of the medium, buying opinion is insulting and infuriating and the fact that a giant of the social media world made this mistake is incredibly ironic.

Our approach to bloggers is a simple one, be social, listen and never assume.

If there was a dislike button on this whole affair, I’d be clicking it…

Peter Wood, Social Media Account Manager

The Information Commissioners Office has now (with less than 30 days to go) published some guidelines. They state some important points:

• The Directive applies to mobile devices and applications, as well as  “normal” websites; earlier EU/ UK government documents didn’t always explicitly state this, but it was widely assumed
• That the Directive applies to: “how you use cookies and similar technologies for storing information on a user’s equipment” which means future developments like Connected TVs will be covered by this
• That Flash cookies (i.e. Locally Stored Objects) are covered in case of any doubt
• Acknowledges (see our earlier posts) that browsers do not currently have the functionality to a) categorise cookies by purpose and b) offer consumers an easy way to control cookies by these categories (and therefore purpose)
• States that browser settings are currently not therefore suitable to “rely on” for getting consent from consumers, despite the Directive mentioning them
• That adding consent clauses to site Terms and Conditions is acceptable, but consumers have to be alerted to this change – they must know about it to therefore give consent
• That cookies set as a result of choosing to use a particular site feature also require consent (slightly contradicting earlier suggestions that any cookies required for site functionality were exempt). To be explicit: only cookies that are “strictly necessary” are exempt – e.g. a cookie that enables a shopping basket to work
• Further examples of how to gain consent for particular types of cookies might be issued in future by the ICO

Translating the ICO Guidance Into Action

So what do brands actually need to do? Here are our suggestions, replacing our earlier post on the topic – but of course, we also recommend checking with in-house lawyers, and keeping an eye on the ICO site and industry press. As we’ve commented before, the 25th is just the start.

1: Audit your cookies and tags

The first step is the obvious one – make sure you know which cookies your site drops across all of its pages and as a result of on-page functionality being used. We suggest you review the tracking tags on site, too – always a useful housekeeping exercise and a perfect opportunity to remove any that are no longer required, and to consider a tag carrier solution to make this process easier in future.

We can assist Steak clients with this and suggest a tag carrier and attribution solution that we believe is significantly more advanced that the current market leader – and is being  developed with privacy issues in mind. Please email your contact for more info.

It’s worth noting that redundant tags add to page load speeds – something Google started paying more attention to a few years ago – and slower loading pages will always impact negatively upon conversion rates.

2: Categorise your cookies and tags

As the Directive allows greater leeway for cookies that are vital for site functionality, it makes sense to categorise your cookies and treat different categories differently. We suggest adopting the DMA’s categorisation:

“Cookies necessary for the provision of service: In this case, you may continue to use cookies but you should explain to consumers why you are using them. For example, tell consumers who use an online banking service that cookies are there for security purposes and that they cannot use the service without them.

Useful but intrusive cookies: These cookies are useful to your organisation but are particularly intrusive from the consumer’s point of view. An example of this type would be third-party cookies which track a user’s use of the internet as they move from website to website. You will need to get consent for the use of such cookies and ensure that website visitors are fully aware of how the cookie will work in simple terms which they can understand.

Helpful non-intrusive cookies: Cookies which fall into this category would include cookies which track anonymously how visitors move through your organisation’s web pages. You will need to get consent for the use of such cookies in your privacy policy.

Obsolete cookies: There is no point in asking for consumers’ consent to the use of cookies if they are irrelevant. The audit provides a good opportunity to remove the use of such cookies from your website and will ensure compliance with the requirement in the Data Protection Act 1998 that personal data should not be kept for longer than is necessary.”

The ICO advice builds on this, and makes clear that cookies should be obsessed for how intrusive they are, and suggests one way to do this is to imagine them on a sliding scale – including 3rd party cookies.

3: Update Privacy Policies and Site Terms and Conditions

We strongly suggest brands add text to the existing privacy policy pages linked to from the site footer, or via a new footer link “Cookies” depending on in-house style. This should cover the different types of cookie as categorised above and clearly specify what they are used for and link to any 3^rd party information as relevant- the ICO documents states: “You must think also about giving people more details about what you do – perhaps a list of cookies used with a description of how they work – so that users can make an informed choose about what they will allow.” Remember that you should also provide links to any opt-out mechanisms that exist, too.

4. Decide how to tell consumers – and plan site changes

The ICO have (finally) been clear – brands need to tell consumers that they are using cookies and alert them to any update to Privacy Policies or site Terms and Conditions after the 25^th of May, including linking to information about the policies of third party cookies.

The ICO document discusses two options for informing consumers:

Splash pages or pop-ups which the ICO discount as possibly irritating, and they seem to miss that many browsers block most pop-ups as standard, anyway.

Text in the footer or header which highlights/scrolls when a cookie needs to be set – this could be a good option, or incredibly ugly – and the ICO seem to have missed that most consumers rarely see the footer of a site, as it’s below the fold.

Sites also need to make clear if any site functionality drops a cookie – e.g. ticking a “remember me” box when logging in.

This area is challenging – brands will need to alert consumers without scaring them, or ruining the aesthetic of their websites. No doubt we’ll see some good and some terrible attempts at this in the comings weeks; our initial suggestions are:

Consider a header “accordion”

This is something Amazon already do well – if you visit the.com site from the UK, a content “accordion” suggests you visit the .co.uk; Yahoo! do the same. It’s not hard to imagine these adapted to state something like: “This website uses cookies; under new EU law, we need your consent to use them – please click here” linked to the relevant information / opt out to gain consent (or not). Obviously this needs legal sign-off; but the mechanism is worth considering.

This could be set to only appear on first visit to the site after the 25^th (using a cookie, ironically) and then re-enabled for subsequent changes. This of course only applies if the user doesn’t need to give consent on every visit – but if that becomes requried, the industry is going to have wider issues to worry about, anyway.

The current usage of this technology by Amazon and Yahoo! is shown below:

Add text to functionality options

Where ever a site user takes action (click, ticks a box etc.) and enables site functionality that drops a cookie, add text telling them – e.g. “By ticking “remember me” you will set a cookie on your computer. Read more here” (linked to Ts and Cs/Privacy Policy as relevant). This of couse won’t be the easiest thing to integrate into site designs – another option might be a small piece of text “Uses Cookies – Hover for Info” which uses a hover-over tool tip to provide info and a link.

4: Monitor the Press

This will be the most important thing after the 25^th May – as further DCMS/ICO guidelines may be published and the attempts to enhance browser functionality succeed or fail, brands will need to adjust their cookie usage / site text accordingly.

We’ll post further posts and update this one as relevant.